Orange Lining is a public art project created by Buster Simpson and Peg Butler for the new MAX Orange Line, formerly known as the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail (PMLR) Transit Project. Orange Lining installations span the 7.3 mile length of the light rail alignment to create episodic, conceptual and aesthetic continuity.
Orange Lining consists of two project phases that placed community-generated lines of text along the length of the light rail alignment. In the spring of 2012, drawing upon Portland's ethic of community engagement and creativity, a public call was sent out for brief written expressions of the times that would reflect upon the egalitarian, utilitarian and civic nature of this new infrastructure project. The call requested short lines of text (fifty characters or less) to be painted onto silt fencing during the temporary Art Starts Now phase and then stamped into sidewalk paving during the permanent Impressed Concrete phase. Eleven hundred submissions were received, and one hundred and two of them were selected as "orange lines" for use in the project through a blind-jury selection process.
